Not until they were safely in the car, cocooned behind steel and locked doors, did the photographer, cradling the ruins of his camera in his lap, finally find his voice. "What are we going to do?" he asked, primal memories of the Hunt trembling in his tone.
"We're going to do... " With an icy hand and shaking fingers, she jammed the car into gear, stomped on the gas, and sprayed gravel over half the parking lot. "... exactly what he said."
Together they'd been threatened a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. Once, they'd even been attacked by an ex-NHL defenseman swinging a hockey stick with enraged abandon. They'd always gotten the story. Or a version of the story at least. This time, something in heart and soul, in blood and bone recognized the danger and overruled conscious thought.
Inside Marjory Nelson's apartment, Celluci glared enviously at the back of Henry's red-gold head. If he hated anything, it was the press. The statements they insisted on were the bane of his existence. "I wish I could do that," he muttered.
Henry wisely kept from voicing the obvious and made sure all masks were back in place before turning. This was not the time for Michael Celluci to see him as a threat.
Celluci rubbed at the side of his nose and sighed. "There'll probably be others."
"I'll deal with them."
"And if they come in the daytime?"
"You deal with them." Henry's smile curved predator sharp. "You're not on duty, Detective. You can be as rude as... " Just how rude Celluci could be got lost in a sudden change of expression and a heartbeat later he was racing for the bedroom.
To mortal eyes, one moment he was there, the next gone. Celluci turned in time to see Vicki's bedroom door thrown open, swore, and pounded across the living room. He hadn't heard anything. What the hell had Fitzroy heard?
How could she have forgotten?
She dug frantically at the tiles in the kitchen. As they ripped free, she flung them behind her, ignoring the fingernail that ripped free with them, ignoring the blood from her hands that began to mark its own pattern on the floor. Almost there. Almost.
The area she cleared stretched six feet long by three feet wide, the edges ragged. Finally only the plywood subfloor remained. Rot marked the gray-brown wood and tendrils of pallid fungus grew between the narrow boards. Fighting for breath, she slammed her fists against this last barrier.
The wood cracked, splintered, and gave enough for her to force a grip on the first piece. She threw her weight against it and it lifted with a moist, sucking sound, exposing a line of gray-blonde curls and perhaps a bit of shoulder.
How could she have forgotten where she'd left her mother?
Begging for forgiveness, she clawed at the remaining boards... .
"Vicki! Vicki, wake up, it's only a dream."
She couldn't stop the first cry, but she grabbed at the second and wrestled it back where it came from. Her conscious mind clung to the reassurances murmured over and over against her hair. Her subconscious waited for the next board to be removed. Her hands clung of their own volition, fingers digging deep into the shoulder and arm curved protectively around her.
"It's all right, Vicki. It's all right. I'm here. It was only a dream. I'm here. I've got you... " The words, Henry knew, were less important than the tone and as he spoke he drew the cadence around the fierce pounding of her heart and convinced it to calm.
"Henry?"
"I'm here."
She fought the terror for control of her breathing and won at last. A long breath in. A longer breath out. And then again.
Henry almost heard the barriers snap back into place as she pushed away, chin rising defiantly.
"I'm okay." It was only a dream. You're acting like a child. "Really, I'm okay." The darkness shifted things, moved furniture that hadn't been moved in fifteen years. Where the hell is the bedside table? "Turn on the light," she commanded, struggling to keep new panic from touching her voice. "I need my glasses."
A cool touch against her hand and her fingers closed gratefully around the heavy plastic frames. A second touch helped her settle them on her nose just as the room flooded with light. Squinting against the glare, she turned to face the switch and Michael Celluci's worried frown.
"Jesus. Both of you."
"I'm afraid so." Henry shifted his weight on the edge of the bed and asked, without much hope of success, "Do you want to talk about it?"
Her lip curled. "Not likely." Talking about it would mean thinking about it. Thinking about what she'd have found, what she'd have seen, if she'd managed to tear up just one more piece of floor... .
"Celluci? Fergusson. Med school's got three Chens. One of them's even a Tom Chen, Thomas Albert Chen. And guess what, the kid's got an airtight alibi not only for that night but for the whole two and a half weeks our boy was at the body parlour. Rough luck, eh?"
Celluci, receiver pinned between shoulder and ear, washed down a forkful of scrambled eggs with a mouthful of bitter coffee. He hadn't thought Fergusson a subtle enough man for sarcasm. Obviously, he'd been wrong. "Yeah, rough. You take his picture around to Hutchinson's just in case?"